Creative Quest

There's species-wide programming and then there's individuality. The overlap between those two opens up a space for creativity. Live in that space. I'm here too. Maybe I'll see you around sometime.

Collaborations work best this way; when there's a mutual desire to see what the other side adds. You know that what you're making on your own has value but the sum is more than the parts and every part knows it.

[Creativity] is about finding your own unique way of fitting into the continually repeating human experience.

It’s a world where we grapple all the time with our insignificance, where things happen around us and to us. Being creative, in whatever form, is the proof that we can leave an imprint on our surroundings, that we can make a mark on time. Even her expansion of the definition of art into politics “or something else” stays faithful to this idea of creativity. When we make something, we make something different.

Deciding what you're not before you decide what you are let's you stand strong in your own category

Sometimes I think I’m restrained by information—that I’m too focused on the finer points of things, too detail-minded, unable to free myself from the hold of other people’s work.

creative people are always having ideas. That’s not the trick. The trick is learning how to capture them without being captured by them,

There are now apps that let you change your onscreen face in real time before you take selfies. This can’t be helped. People who are purely presentational will remain that way. I’m more worried about the effect on creative people. The goal of creativity may be to learn to present yourself to others, in part, but it’s not to present yourself at the expense of truth. The second you become your own product, you’re heading down a chute rather than up a ladder.

You have to throw things away so that there is some value implied by the act of keeping other things.

technology drives a stake into the heart of originality.

Make your environment reflective of your tastes. Eliminate distractions, including the distraction of being without any of the distractions you need.

Whatever your personal preference, no matter how significant or how trivial, if it’s a source of pleasure, and in denying yourself that pleasure you’ll be entering a state where you think about it all the time, then you are working against your own creativity. You might think certain things are a distraction, but going without them can become a larger distraction if you are thinking all the time about the time when you will be returned to them, or them to you.

You have to remember that you’re insignificant, but also that you are potentially more significant than all the noise that’s being supplied to you at every moment.

That’s one thing about being creative. Don’t be too set in your own ways. Be suggestible from time to time. Allow unexpected influences (like Torr) to shift your ideas. You can always come back to your own convictions if they’re real. But be a tourist in other perspectives.

Creative things happen to creative people, especially when they let themselves go to the Zen of the moment, when they don’t allow themselves to be paralyzed either by overthinking or by laziness. They

And it’s more than a metaphor. It’s a physical state. Think of all the things you do in the course of a day. For most tasks, the best-case scenario is that your mind is bright, sharp, and alert. Figure out whether you’re a morning person (like me) or a night person (sadly, also like me), and schedule your tasks for that time. If you need to get up at five in the morning so you can answer all your correspondence without a foggy brain, that’s what you should do. If you need to stay late in the office so you can transcribe your notes from the meeting, that’s what you should do.

They permit themselves a wider range of ideas, even ones that might not apply to the situation at hand. The Harvard psychologist Shelley Carson calls this weirdness “cognitive disinhibition,” and thinks that it’s at the heart of all creativity. If we’re always discarding our thoughts to fit in with what’s acceptable, or correct, or accurate, we’re not going to have ideas that leap away from the ideas that are already there. That’s the first point. Encourage

Pay attention to seeds. We’re back to botanical metaphors here. Big ideas grow from those little things. Writers tend to be people who are sensitive to words. Artists are sensitive to color and line. If you want to encourage your own creativity, try to pay attention to the creative acts of others. More than that: try to pay attention to the ways in which the things that you didn’t think of as creative acts are actually perfect examples of creativity.

Deciding what you’re not before you decide what you are lets you stand strong in your own category.